[dogfu]

Clarification: I did not take any undergraduate biology courses.

You don't need prestige academic credentials to read about it in the popular press, type in some search terms, and come up with this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis . There is no checking of your SAT scores or college GPA or anything inorder to do this, so give it a try. They may track you via cookies, but I recommend taking a chance.

[alexholehouse]

I mean, famously the popular press and internet provide a totally infallible account of information.

Here's the scoop. I did take undergraduate biology courses. I studied biochemistry to bachelors and masters degree level, and I can tell you for absolutely nothing that the "popular media's" interpretation of science is pretty frequently bordering irresponsible. The media is there to sell papers.

Your analysis of the need-case for an AIDS (and HPV) vaccine is ignorant and frankly offensive.

[dogfu]

How is preventing aids by not engaging in man on man encounters and shooting illegal drugs ignorant and offensive?

[scythe]

Well, aside from being completely false...

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm

[Mz]

For starters, blatant homophobia. Risk of AIDS is hardly limited to illegal drug users and gays. Medical professionals and police officers are fairly often exposed to blood (and other bodily fluids), either accidentally or intentionally, in the process of dealing professionally with people at higher than normal risk of carrying AIDS (or other infectious agents).

[alexholehouse]

I think I'm done here.

[dogfu]

Yeah, whole thread is going downhill fast. Sorry.

[scythe]

It's called the hygiene hypothesis, not the vaccine hypothesis. Let's take a look:

>In medicine, the Hygiene Hypothesis states that a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (e.g., gut flora or probiotics)

Okay, so if you've had the chicken pox vaccine, your immune system has been exposed to infectious agents -- just inactivated ones! The kind that don't cause shingles. Vaccines do stimulate an immune response, after all.

The article you linked contains precisely one reference to vaccination.

>Th2 immune disorders such as asthma and other allergic diseases are probably related to the hygiene hypothesis. A baby has many Th2 cells, which stimulate the production of antibodies. When not sufficiently stimulated with early life diseases, the immune system will have too many Th2 cells present, leading to a greater risk of Th2 immune disorder. If a child is exposed to infection diseases then the cell defense will be stimulated via Th1 cells causing a reduction of Th2 cells and subsequently a reduction of antibody stimulation by Th2 and therefore a lower risk of developing an allergic disease such as asthma. Unfortunately, vaccination only uses the Th2 mechanism.

Interesting. I wonder if there's some data to back this up?

http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/2002/06000/Childhood_v...

>There is no association between diphtheria, tetanus and whole cell pertussis vaccine, oral polio vaccine or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the risk of asthma. The weak associations for Hib and hepatitis B vaccines seem to be at least partially accounted for by health care utilization or information bias.

This was a study with n > 100000. That's a good study. Apparently vaccines don't cause athsma.

On the other hand, there actually appears to be some hope that vaccines can fight athsma:

http://www.jimmunol.org/content/166/2/959.short

>Vaccination with Allergen-IL-18 Fusion DNA Protects Against, and Reverses Established, Airway Hyperreactivity in a Murine Asthma Model

http://www.jimmunol.org/content/167/7/3792.short

>Active vaccination against IL-5 reduces key pathological events associated with asthma, such as Th2 cytokine production, airways inflammation, and hyperresponsiveness, and thus represents a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of asthma and other allergic conditions.

"The miracle of modern medicine."

[dogfu]

Excellent points. Much appreciated. My point is that just dealing with the flu, chicken pox, some transient herpesvirae infections, etc by letting the body's defences deal with it without actively vaccinating against them might be the best way to deal with problem. Often the body develops memory cells to defeat later similar infections on it's own. I am not convinced that the notion that we might over-vaccinate has been disproven.